He checked to see if there was anything from Amos or Naomi, and felt a little let down when there wasn’t. He recorded brief messages for the both of them and sent them out.
In the main room of the apartment the kids’ voices were loud, three conversations going on at the same time, each fighting to be heard over the others. Alex ignored them, accessing the local directory and looking up old names. People he could think of from his time in the service. There were dozens. Marian Costlow. Hannu Metzinger. Aaron Hu. He checked the directory against them, old friends and acquaintances and enemies, looking for who was still on Mars, still in the Navy, still someone who might remember him well enough to go out for a few beers and talk.
By the end of the evening, he had three, and he sent messages to each of them, then requested a connection to Bobbie. A few seconds later, she appeared on his screen. Wherever she was, it wasn’t the hospital. She had on a shirt with a green collar instead of the blue patient’s gown, and her hair had been washed and braided back.
“Alex,” she said. “Sorry about my brother. He means well, but he’s kind of a dick.”
“Everybody’s related to someone,” he said. “You wind up at his place or your own?”
“Neither one,” she said. “I need to hire a cleanup crew to get the blood off my floor, and I’m doing a solid security audit to figure out how they got in.”
“Yeah. Wouldn’t feel safe until that’s done,” Alex agreed.
“Right? And if there is a follow-up attack, I’m sure as hell not staying where it’s going to catch Ben and his wife in the crossfire. I popped for a hotel room. They’ve got their own security, and I can pay for extra surveillance.”
Min’s voice rose in the background, calling for calm. There was laughter in her tones, and he heard it echoed in the protests of her children. A tightness like a hand closed over his heart. He hadn’t thought about a follow-up attack. He should have.
“They got a spare room at that hotel?” he asked.
“Probably. You want me to find out?”
“Nah, I’ll just pack up and head over, if that’s all right. They don’t, someone will.” And whoever it is, it won’t be Min, he thought but didn’t say. “I got a few people I thought I’d try chatting up in the next few days. See if anything seems likely.”
“I really appreciate this, Alex,” Bobbie said. “We should talk about how to manage that safely. I don’t want you walking into a trap.”
“Wouldn’t make me happy either. Also, you don’t have access to a ship, do you?”
Bobbie blinked at the non sequitur. “What kind of ship?”
“Something small and fast,” Alex said. “May need to get out to the Belt, take a gander at something for Holden.”
“Well, actually, yeah,” Bobbie said. “Avasarala gave me the old racing pinnace we took from Jules-Pierre Mao back in the day. It’s pretty much just been sucking dock fees, but I could probably get it polished up.”
“You’re kiddin’. She gave you the Razorback?”
“Not kidding. I think it was her way of paying me w
ithout actually paying me. She’d probably be confused that I haven’t sold it yet. Why? What’s up?”
“I’ll let you know when I hear more,” Alex said. “Maybe something, maybe nothing.”
But either way, he thought, it’ll get you and me both where it’s hard as hell to have someone make a follow-up attack.
Chapter Sixteen: Holden
The security footage from Tycho Station covered almost all of the public spaces. The wide, open common corridors, the thinner access ways. Gantries and maintenance corridors. It seemed like the only places the eyes of station security didn’t reach were the businesses and personal quarters. Even the storage lockers and tool shops had cameras logging whoever went in or out. It should have made things easy. It didn’t.
“This has got to be it,” Holden said, tapping a finger against the screen. Under his nail, Monica’s doorway opened. Two people came out. They wore light blue jumpsuits with no signs or insignia, dark, close-fitting caps, and work gloves. The crate they wheeled between them was the same formed plastic and ceramic that food and environmental services used to transport biological materials: raw fungal matter to be textured and flavored, then the foods that were made from them, and – when needed – the processed fecal remains taken back as substrate for the fungus. Magnetic clamps held it to the cart, and the indicator on the side showed it was sealed. It was big enough, maybe, to hold a woman. Or a woman’s body.
They’d gone in an hour earlier. Monica had gone in twenty minutes before. Whatever happened, she had to have been in that box.
Fred, scowling and hunched over, marked the crate as an item of interest and put a follow order on it. Holden couldn’t tell what the older man was thinking, but his eyes were flat with anger. Anger and something else.
“You recognize them?” Holden asked.
“They’re not in the system.”
“Then how did they get on the station?”